First you need Xlink Kai or a ps3. I do not know how to do any of these so i can just say this:Just stay confident, do not engage in straight up combat (you have no chance if you don't evade or block) and you do not need to rely on other people to get successful.What is your problem? I can help you out to get you to higher ranks.Note: Do not do the gathering hall from the start, do the village quests (old lady at the top of the village behind a blue rock and a cat with a huge coat)

i made it to 3* quest last night, i am stuck now on a couple of the wyverns in that tier. i am in need of monster bone +, i have heard that 3* guild quest can give those but i have yet to test that. any help would be amazing!

The channels and gathering halls relate to ad-hoc(local) rather than wifi(online). so if you just wander into the online section of the game it will only search for a local player. which means someone sitting right next to you with their psp also in online mode. This game does not have in built online functionality to play with others via internet.

However you can play online over internet with remote users by using the ad-hoc party function of a ps3 or by buying a wifi access point like a wifi max and connecting through your pc using a program called x-link kai.

search neo forums for either of those as there are loads of threads about this like this recent thread on neo

however if you already are using ad-hoc party its much easier to let the program search for a world and room automatically. when doing this the gathering hall that you log into on your psp screen appears to make no difference. Does anyone else know about that?